Reviews for the Dell XPS 13-321X-0281

60%Dell XPS 13Source: Digital VersusPossibly the last company of its kind to try its hand at the ultrabook market, Dell is finally dishing it out with the XPS 13. The XPS 13 gets good overall performances from its CPU (video games excluded) and the finishing is nice, but the near-Saharan heat levels, pitiful display and anemic connectivity give this ultrabook a three-star rating, at best. Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 08/24/2012Rating:Total score: 60%

Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook ReviewSource: FuturelooksMany people still think of Dell as that company that can sell you a cheap, but reasonably reliable laptop. Our household had the trusty 12-inch 700m for a number of years and it was a great little notebook. The problem with older Dells is that, well, they weren’t exactly the prettiest things to look at.The Dell XPS 13 is different. Yes, it borrows a lot of inspiration from the MacBook Air, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 07/05/2012

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The Ultrabook concept was announced by Intel at Computex 2011. This new generation of notebooks would use low power Intel processors, have an extremely thin profile and could also include certain tablet functions. We’ve seen a huge number and variants of Ultrabooks by many manufacturers in the first wave of these ‘MacBook Air-killer’ devices. Dell seemed to take it slow and only released their first Ultrabook in the first quarter of 2012. While most manufacturers decided to brand their Ultrabooks under new names and with many variants and sizes, Dell used its already prominent ‘XPS’ range to market theirs with just one size.

The Dell XPS 13 certainly turns heads. Like its bigger brother, the Dell XPS 14Z, it has a curvaceous silver aluminium body with a reduced chassis size for its screen. This makes it real compact even for an Ultrabook. Dell had managed to squeeze a 13 inch display into what they say is an 11 inch body. In reality, it doesn’t really get to that but it is close enough and is definitely smaller than all the other 13 inch Ultrabooks. The XPS13 has a carbon fiber bottom covered with a thin rubberized coating making keeping the laptop firmly in its place when typing. The bonded Corning Gorilla Glass display gives the display a slightly more solid feel.

Dell offers the XPS 13 for 999 € onwards same as the Asus Zenbook UX31 which is its main competitor. However, its 1366 x 768 display resolution is noticeably lower than the when compared to the 1600 x 900 panel on the UX31. Advantages of the XPS 13 over the UX31 include its backlight keyboard, more responsive keys and a smaller size.

Intel Core i7: The Intel Core i7 for laptops is based on the LG1156 Core i5/i7 CPU for desktops. The base clock speed of the CPUs is relatively low, but because of a huge Turbo mode, the cores can dynamically overclock to up to 3.2 GHz (920XM). Therefore, the CPU can be as fast as high clocked dual-core CPUs (using single threaded applications) but still offer the advantage of 4 cores. Because of the large TDP of 45 W / 55 W, the CPU is only intended for large laptops.

2637M: Power saving ULV processor clocked at 1.7-2.8 GHz due to Turbo Boost. Offers an integrated HD 3000 clocked at slow 350 / 1200 MHz and a DDR3-1333 memory controller.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

13.3":

Above all, this display size is used for subnotebooks, ultrabooks and convertibles. For all three types, this size is quite large. The biggest variety of subnotebooks is represented with this size.

Large display-sizes allow higher resolutions. So, details like letters are bigger. On the other hand, the power consumption is lower with small screen diagonals and the devices are smaller, more lightweight and cheaper.

This weight is typical for big tablets, small subnotebooks, ultrabooks and convertibles with a 10-11 inch display-diagonal.

Dell: Dell Inc. is a multinational technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells, and supports personal computers and other computer-related products. Based in Texas, Dell employs more than 82,700 people worldwide (2009). In 2006, Dell purchased the computer hardware manufacturer Alienware. In most countries, the laptops are directly sold to consumers by Dell and each notebook custom-assembled according to a selection of options. Market share regarding sales of personal computers in 2007 (market research IDC): HP 18.9 %, Dell 16.4 %, Acer 9.9 %, Lenovo 7.5 %, Apple 5.7 %